


Afterwards

by AconitumNapellus



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 18:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17533766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AconitumNapellus/pseuds/AconitumNapellus
Summary: After Assignment II, Sapphire and Steel reflect on the pasg flower, and on Tully.





	Afterwards

They always spend a little time after a particularly hard assignment resting. They’re not really in a specific place. Not really in time, or out of it. It’s all a construct, anyway.

Sapphire likes to make a joke about it. ‘Just in time,’ she might say, or ‘We’re out of time.’

Steel smiles. Sometimes he lets her see the smile and sometimes he doesn’t. Chances are, she can tell he’s smiling anyway. They’re like that, he and Sapphire. They know each other so deep down it’s as if their atoms are conversing.

She doesn’t make any jokes this time. She holds that flower, the pasg flower, a flower which is neither in time, nor out of time. He asks her, ‘When is that flower from, Sapphire?’ and she affects to misunderstand him, and says in a faraway voice, ‘It’s a Dorset hillside. A meadow, around Eastertide. Lapwings in the sky.’

‘Not where,’ he says, in his most steely tone. ‘ _When_.’

She cups her hands around it as she tries to read it. It’s a beautiful, delicate thing, of such a pale, strong, violet hue. When he looks at it he can see each vein in the petals, each vein in the leaves. It’s like a harebell, but not a harebell, Sapphire says; but he doesn’t know what a harebell looks like anyway.

‘I don’t know when it’s from,’ she says. ‘It’s – not in time any more. I don’t think it came out of time. It’s just – here.’

‘Is it dangerous?’ he asks.

He has to be suspicious. It’s his job. It’s a rogue flower, blooming out of place and out of time, on an urban railway station, in the autumn. Neither Eastertide nor a meadow. It shouldn’t have been there.

She lets it lie in her hands for a little longer.

‘No,’ she says eventually. ‘No, it’s not dangerous. It’s a gift.’

‘From the darkness?’ he asks.

Sapphire is so innocent, or, she _can_ be so innocent. She can make herself look innocent as a three year old child, but sometimes that innocence is real, all the way to her core.

She scoffs. ‘Not from the darkness, Steel. The darkness doesn’t deal in rare flowers.’

‘From Private S. Pearce, then,’ Steel guesses, his tone dry as the autumn leaves. ‘A gift from the doomed youth.’

The corners of her mouth lift. Her tone is one of light, surprised, almost mocking delight. Her eyes flash blue. ‘Steel, I didn’t know you read poetry.’

‘I know enough,’ he says.

‘From Sam Pearce,’ she nods, gazing on that flower as if it’s the most important thing in the world.

Sometimes she gazes at Steel like that, but now her attention is reserved for the flower, and he feels jealousy. Jealousy for a flower is ridiculous. He wants to snatch it out of her hands, but he doesn’t.

‘To you?’ he asks, then adds with a twist of cruelty, ‘or to Eleanor?’

She smiles again, because she knows him, knows where his jealousy comes from, knows there’s no need for it; not really.

‘To me, of course. It’s a thank you. He was grateful, at the last.’

‘Hmm,’ Steel says. He doesn’t exactly believe in gratitude, in someone who can hold onto such bitterness becoming grateful at the last.

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ Sapphire says. She turns to the table, and, where a moment before it was empty, now there’s a little cut glass vase, a bud vase, sitting there. She delicately puts the flower in the water, and gives it a smile like the summer sun.

Steel sits down on the other side of the table from her. It’s funny how they spent so long on that assignment sitting at tables, and now they’re free for a little while they choose to sit at a table again. It’s a different table, though, and different chairs. None of it is real. Everything is a construct.

‘It won’t last,’ Sapphire says. ‘Wild flowers never last long, when they’re picked.’

Sadness comes over her. He can feel it as much as he can see it. He can feel it right through his body, right through his mind. He puts out a hand and lays it over hers on the table. His hand buries hers. She may be a little taller than he is, but his hands are big.

‘Tully,’ he says.

She looks up, and her eyes are sparkling.

‘I promised him, Steel,’ she says. ‘I made him a promise.’

His voice is low and hard. ‘It wasn’t your promise to give.’

‘Steel, we are the ones in power,’ she says. ‘We’re the ones – ’

Her voice chokes a little, and his hand presses over hers.

‘You didn’t break your promise to him. I broke it. What did he have, anyway? A life chasing ghosts? A cat at home that doesn’t even miss him?’

‘A _life_ ,’ Sapphire says. ‘He had a life, Steel. It was _his_ life.’

‘They all had a life,’ Steel says, throwing his words out like little hard things. ‘All of them. Most of them lost it when they’d hardly started using it. War slaughters men with as much emotion and efficiency as a mower cuts down wild flowers. What was Tully’s lifespan? Fifty-seven?’

‘Fifty-seven point zero three,’ Sapphire corrects him, as if that point zero three of a year is the most important thing.

‘Fifty-seven point zero three. A bounty, compared to those young men. He wanted to help them. Well, he’s helped them. He’s given them five years.’

‘Four point one three years,’ Sapphire corrects him again, her voice brittle.

‘Four point one three.’ He smiles. ‘It’s not even as bad as it seemed. Not five years. Four point one three.’

‘They were _his_ years.’ Her face is earnest, her eyes so blue with tears that he could fall into them. If he lets himself look right into them he can see the entire of the world’s oceans, streams, waterfalls, all in her eyes.

‘Four point one three years of his life, in return for those souls being freed from eternal darkness.’

‘You make it sound like you believe in souls,’ Sapphire replies.

‘ _He_ did. At least, he pretended he did. Souls. God. Jesus Christ our Lord.’

‘He was a good man, Steel,’ Sapphire says.

Steel smiles. ‘He was,’ he nods. ‘Yes. He was a small, scared – good man.’

He can’t confess his feelings to her. He can’t confess them to himself. Sapphire knows, of course, what his feelings are. He doesn’t need to confess.

He nods at the bed at the side of the room, a bed with a blue silk coverlet and blue silk pillows. The most comfortable bed in the world. It hadn’t been there a moment ago.

‘You should sleep for a while,’ he says. ‘Get your strength back. You went through a lot, Sapphire.’

She looks across at the bed that he’s made for her. She looks back at him with love in her eyes. She’s in a diaphanous nightgown now, something that makes his heart beat a little harder even though he doesn’t really have a heart and she doesn’t really have a human body. They make the best use of these forms that they can, and all the benefits that come along with them.

He stands, lifting her hand like a gentleman, raising her up to stand. He kisses her fingers, and lets her hand go. She moves to the bed with all the grace of a spring day, settles down beneath the covers, and closes her eyes.

Steel sits back down at the table. He sits, and watches her sleep.


End file.
